I often stumbled across some blogs who specialize in handing more blockquotes than original content, which is fine for them and their blogging style because, for the most part, their posts point to valuable and related content.

What incenses me is their credit line:

Story provided by digg.

You can replace Digg with del.icio.us, Tumblr, Technorati, Stumble Upon or any of the other social bookmarking services.

I’d like to point out for the ignorant that social bookmarking services do not provide original content. They do not write articles (except on their blogs) nor generate content. They only provide placeholders for article links and conversations about those article links. If credit is to be given, why not credit the person who originally submitted the recommendation with a hat tip? Then give credit where credit is really deserved – to the original author of the original content.

Why give Digg and the others the credit for what they don’t deserve?

Please, for the sake of all bloggers and writers who work hard on what they have to write, link to the original article.
There are many reasons to do this.

You direct readers directly to the article rather than a two or three click journey through a middle man. Your readers will thank you.

“Hat tips”, acknowledgments to the person or site that tipped you off, is fine, but get your reader to the content you recommend, not the recommendation of the content.

The direct link to the article can generate a trackback in the original article, which appears on their blog, connecting your blog with theirs.

The original author is alerted to your coverage of her article and may visit your site to check it out.

You might pick up a reader or subscriber through the trackback reference. At the least, you might get a thank you.

From that visit, the original author might find something you wrote to be worthy of writing about.

A link is made to the original article, giving you credit points in the determination of Google’s Page Rank, which counts outgoing and incoming links, and lending a hand to the original author’s Page Rank as well as yours if the linked content matches your blog’s content.

If you create a reference or comment based upon what someone says or writes, you must include an attribute that implies, “I’m not the original source. This is the original source.” You increase your reader’s trust, and your reputation as a blogger they can trust, when you give credit where credit is due.

The amount you “quote”, commonly called blockquote on blogs, is restricted to that blog or site’s copyright policy and license. Assume that they do not allow copying of their entire content, but only permit Fair Use of their content for reference in accordance with international copyright laws. Check with their copyright policies to make sure. Always assume their content is copyrighted.

Not only are the issues involved in fair use complicated and difficult to understand, but the answer is never satisfying. Since fair use can only be decided by a judge or jury and is handled on a case-by-case basis, there is no way to offer a definitive answer about what is or is not fair use. One can only determine the probability of the outcome based upon facts of the case.

While the Fair Use Visualizer may help, the biggest problem with Fair Use is that each copyright holder has to set the boundaries for what is “fair”. A growing standard for Fair Use on the web is 400 words or 10%, but you must make it clear in your copyright what your policy is. If you are copying another’s content, play fair and use as little as possible to make your point, and include a credit link to the rest of the content.

Here are some other guides and resources for learning more about attributions and citations for bloggers.

Great post. It’s amazing how many folks think that Digg (or another social bookmarking site) is the one that’s out there creating the news or writing the articles. I think part of the confusion is folks see the comments on the Digg story, which often comment on the underlying topic, and the Digg post takes on a life of its own, rather than folks going to the original article to offer their input.

One of the things that you didn’t touch on in this but needs to get more attention all around is that some scrapers are tapping the Technorati watchlists feeds to scrape a lot of keyword rich content from a variety of sites.

I’ve seen a lot of that lately and it is getting to be a worrisome. Worst off all, Technorati seems to be doing nothing about it.

Ouch! I assumed this, since scrapers are grabbing content from everywhere they can, and it’s easier to get away with it when grabbing content from indirect sources, but I didn’t realized how bad this had gotten with Technorati.

Have you written about this lately? We do, indeed, need to turn up the heat and maybe “public opinion” will help sway Technorati and other similar sites. Thanks for letting me know.

I think what Aaron means is when a user uses the automatic blog feature from DIGG – meaning a story is blogged by clicking on that “blog this” link on DIGG. The story link is then usually both to DIGG and the original source (as automatically published on the blog). In my opinion, this is quite a crafty way to get inbound links.

Yeah, thanks J. Angelo, that’s exactly what I meant. The automatic blogging feature on Digg adds the link back to Digg automatically. Also, I don’t really understand why digg wouldn’t get some credit. It is most likely the place where you found out about the story. I’d say the story author deserves a link, and Digg deserves at least a nod in your blog.

Its like saying the original is better…you should credit the person who really deserves the accolade.Paying attention to who really deserves it…will give back to what credit is due.It will uplift their personality.

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